Now that you’re using Ameego for scheduling (RIGHT?!) you have a lot more time on your hands to focus on the other things that go into making a restaurant successful, like marketing! A strong knowledge of how to promote your business is key to making sure your restaurant stays full, but where do you start?

Let’s talk Valentine’s Day. We know that you’re probably sitting in your restaurant (or if you’re lucky, still lounging in bed!) exhausted from the gong show that just exploded in your dining room and kitchen. There may have been proposals, or break ups, or just heaps of mushy love, but we KNOW that it was an intense day for you and your staff.

Are you glued to your phone? It’s okay to admit that you are, and you’re not the only one. We all know that mobile devices are here to stay, but did you know that they’re actually replacing desktop devices when it comes to accessing the web? According to Entrepreneur Magazine Online, in December 2017, 56.74 percent of internet traffic came from mobile devices (including tablets). That’s huge! While mobile responsive websites were once a nice to have now they’re a requirement, and companies are adding app versions of their sites alongside them as a clean and efficient way to access their content.

Once upon a time in a land called Winnipeg, a bunch of young adults met while working in a downtown restaurant. Bartenders. servers, cocktailers, and supervisors, these dedicated employees loved everything about their job and were the best of friends. Life was wonderful.

Well Ontario, $14 minimum wage is here and $15 minimum wage is just around the corner. In the restaurant industry this is understandably causing some major anxiety. This industry is labour heavy and with one of the biggest costs increasing dramatically, profitability is something that seems less and less certain.

It's kind of funny now, to think about the way we used to order pizza.

Find the phonebook under the sofa or above the fridge. Flip to the back to the phonebook to find the pizza places and their menus. Walk to your rotary telephone in the kitchen. Dial the number, fingers dusty with the inky scent of the yellow pages, give your order to the kid on the other end of the phone, tell him your address and give him directions.

Check to make sure you have cash—you had to have cash. About an hour later, the kid’s beat-up car pulled into the driveway, quarters and bills shifting in his fanny pack, and the doorbell rang.

If you asked your managers, ‘What’s the one task you do every week that you dread, and that takes you off the floor for far too long?’ there’s a good chance they won’t even have to think before answering:

'The Schedule.'

For many restaurants, scheduling manually takes hours every week, and in the end, it may not be serving anyone very well, leaving a trail of inefficiencies as well as disgruntled team members and customers behind it.

That’s it. This is the year your restaurant is going to tackle—er, embrace—online ordering. Trouble is, you’re just not sure where to start. And when you begin to look into it, you get lost in the proverbial rabbit hole.

What kind of system?

Should we deliver?

What’s the ROI?

So many questions. So many decisions.

To help give you an expert introduction into all the things you should consider as you venture into online ordering, we spoke with Charlie Jeffers, CEO at TakeOut Technologies.

Most of the time, when we talk about time theft, we’re hearing it from the point of view of owners: Employees are skirting the rules to show they’ve worked more hours than they really have, and that’s costing me money.

What we don’t always think about is the other kind of time theft, the kind where staff are being stolen from.

This spirit of indulgence that seems boundless in December is the stuff of dreams for restaurant managers.

There’s no doubt this time of year puts everyone in a spend-y state of mind. So, while that’s taking place why don’t we walk through a few ways to help drive profits even higher this quarter by simply doing what you already do better.